


Forces

by themegalosaurus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s12e08 LOTUS, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Imprisonment, Post-Episode: s12e08 LOTUS, Sam Has Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:40:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus
Summary: There are lots of reasons why Sam might not do well, imprisoned. But neither he nor Dean anticipated that he'd react like this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AlulaSpeaks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlulaSpeaks/gifts).



> This first chapter was written for AlulaSpeaks, as part of the Bitter Sam Girl Club Secret Santa 2016.

There’s a small slot towards the base of Dean’s cell door that’s his only point of communication with the outside world. Twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, a tray of food is pushed through. He can tell which is which by what they serve him: cold eggs and hash browns for breakfast, soggy tomatoes swimming in watery juice. In the evening, the menu’s more varied. Beans. Something that might be chilli. Sometimes there’s a slice or two of fruit. Either way, and however shitty the food, the moments where it arrives are usually the only events of Dean’s day; so he’s learned to anticipate them, to centre his activity on their coming.

After the first couple times, he lies on the floor when he thinks the slot might soon open, waiting for the brief opportunity it offers to peer through the opening into the corridor outside. He doesn’t know where they’re holding Sam; but he yells out anyway, “ _Sammy,”_ can’t hurt.

Sam doesn’t answer. He never answers, but Dean carries on yelling.

This goes on, this whole routine, for 33 days before anything changes. On the thirty-third day, Dean’s down on his belly on the floor, waiting for his night-time food delivery. There’s no way to tell time in the cell - nothing but the arrival of the food itself - so he often gets it wrong, more nowadays since his whole sense of reality has started to warp. Four and a half weeks in a box will do that to a guy.

Anyway. Anyway, he’s on the floor, looking hopefully toward the slot, and he hears something coming from outside. He does hear stuff occasionally, muffled thumpings, the snap of a voice, but it’s always distant and indistinct. He could never hope to make out words. This time, though, there’s more noise than he’s heard in the whole time he’s been here; an uneven clatter, running footsteps maybe but too many and too loud to be just one guy. Some kind of… something. Dean dares to hope, Cas. Or Mom. Jody. Billie. Anybody, really, anyone to get them out.

No food that evening, and Dean’s stomach is rattling empty when the door swings open in the middle of the night (is it even night?) and two guys come in, stick a bag over his head and march him off down the corridor to another windowless room. They sit him down, cuff him to the table and his legs to the chair, then take off the blindfold. He blinks under the bright white bulb. Opposite him, two people: a guy, older, gray-haired, massive and grim; and a woman, in her forties maybe, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. Both are wearing military uniforms.

“Your brother,” says the woman, and Dean feels a chill of panic. “What can you tell us about him?”

That’s easy enough. “Nothing,” Dean says. No chance.

The soldiers exchange glances. The man shuffles his notes, picks up a tablet computer from the table. He taps at the screen.

A video, green-black and grainy. Sam in his cell, staring up towards the lens. Like Dean, he’s got a beard growing in; but even beneath it, he looks skinny. The guy turns the table towards him, presses again. Another shot of the cell, and Sam’s on the bed now, curled up fetal on the too-small frame. Another, and he’s still there. Another. Dean’s gut clenches uncomfortable. Kid… _no._

“He was refusing food,” the woman said. “So we came in to feed him.”

The man skips forward through the tape once more, and Dean sees two guys in body armour entering the cell. Sam’s on the bed, where he’s been for how many days now; and he sits up when they approach him, backing into the corner. He raises his hands defensively in front of his face, but the men move closer. They are carrying plastic tubing, what looks like a funnel. Dean feels sick. What is this? They gonna make him watch Sam being force-fed? Is he going to have to watch Sam choke, maybe die?

On the screen, one of the blurry figures leans towards Sam. He sets a hand heavy on Sam’s shoulder.

Then a bright flash, blinding, and both men are thrown backwards, slammed hard against the opposite wall of the cell. Sam’s still there in the corner, hands over his head now, curled up tiny; but the men are afraid. They leave, dropping their tubing as they go.

The guy with the iPad sets it down, looks at Dean.

“Is he human?” he says.

“I need to see him,” Dean says.

The woman rolls her eyes, looks at her colleague. “That won’t be possible.”

Dean carried the Mark of Cain for what, above a year, so he’s got better at managing his anger. Chained to the desk, there’s not much he can do anyway. But he curls his hands into fists (feels the sharp edge of the cuff against his wrist) and releases them again. When he speaks, his voice is more or less level. “You gotta let me see him,” he says evenly. “Or more of your guys are gonna get hurt.”

“Is that a threat?” says the guy.

“No,” says Dean. “It’s fucking common sense.”

They look at each other.

“He still in his cell?” says Dean. “He eaten anything? Can you even get in there to sedate him?” His heart is hammering in his chest, hurling itself against his ribs. He doesn’t know, doesn’t understand what’s going on with Sam but what he saw on the screen was enough to make him frantic even before the moment where Sam whammied those guards. Christ, he just hopes. He hopes it’s only Sam in there.

The woman’s chair scrapes back over the concrete floor. She stands up, walks out and leaves the room. Another guard, a Latino guy carrying a serious gun, moves forward toward the table. Okay, Dean wants to say. I get the picture. He’s not going anywhere, anyway, doesn’t want to go anywhere until he’s figured out what’s going on with Sam.

It takes a long time for the woman to come back. Dean tries asking questions of the guy for a while, but he doesn’t respond and pretty quick Dean decides he’s more likely to give himself away than to pick up anything useful. Instead, he focuses on praying, on trying to get a message to Cas. As far as he can work out, that’s their best hope of getting away.

The woman comes back with two more beefy guards, and they’re barely in the room before one is behind Dean, pulling the blindfold back over his head. The other releases his cuffs from the table, drags him upright by the shoulder. They don’t speak to him, but they pull him to his feet and drag him forward until he gets the hint and starts walking. _Sam_ , says Dean’s heart thud-thudding. Samsamsamsamsamsamsamsam.

The clash of the cell door, and Dean’s shoved inside, hood snatched off at the last moment and the push between his shoulder blades so unexpected that he stumbles and falls. “We’re watching you,” says a voice, shortly, and the door clangs shut behind him.

Sprawled forward on his knees and his cuffed-together hands, Dean looks up. Sam’s on the bed, looking back at him, wide-eyed and terrified; he’s backed right up into the corner of the room, tucked against the walls like he’d been in the video.

“Hey, Sammy,” says Dean, and Sam twitches, shivers. He shifts back further, like he’s trying to push his whole body through the concrete. “Hey,” Dean says again. “It’s me.”

Sam looks terrible, thick-bearded and skinny, cheekbones prominent in his too-thin face. His eyes are red under the blue-white light, his hair greasy and matted. It looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.

“Sam,” Dean says, struggling upright on his knees. He shuffles forward, barely keeping his balance, brings himself to the foot of Sam’s bed. “Sam, do you know what’s going on?”

Sam’s eyes flicker wildly, across the room. His lips move. “Trap.”

“No,” says Dean, “no, they’re watching us, kid, but it’s not… I just wanna. I need to check that you’re okay.” Sam’s eyebrow quirks and the sudden glimpse of Dean’s brother, the real one, the one who can recognise how fucking ridiculous a statement that was, is somehow more heartbreaking than the mess that Dean’s been dealing with up until now. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, reaching forward. “Let me just.”

The moment his fingers touch Sam’s skin it’s like he’s back in that cellar with the rawhead that nearly killed him; a sudden heavy shock that he feels right through his chest, the force of it flinging him backwards. Hands bound, he’s unable to stop himself falling hard, scraping his chin against the floor. He spits blood, struggles upright again. Sam’s still on the bed, is shaking, looking at him wild-eyed.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says. He runs his tongue over his newly split lip, wipes his face on the sleeve of his jumpsuit. “Do you know,” he says.

“No,” says Sam, whispering soft. “I just. They were going to put a tube down my throat, and I just. I didn’t want them to.”

“Yeah,” says Dean. “Yeah, okay.”

“I don’t know how to stop it,” Sam says.

**Author's Note:**

> Alula's prompt was: 'Late seasons fic where Sam's powers return. But he has changed and so have they.' I loved it and I might turn this into a longer fic (maybe a Wincest fic) - I have ideas for it - but also too much to do, so I'm posting it as complete for now.


End file.
